Dining out: At Toscana, Italian is done right

Simple dishes created skillfully are restaurant's bread and butter

Toscana's malanzane parmigianate -- plump slices of eggplant that are breaded and pan-fried, then topped with an impressive marinara sauce.

Hal Marshall serves Parmesan cheese to John R.S. Robilio (left) and Rob Shuster, at Cafe Toscana, which began a new lunch service in October. Chef Giacomo Ciabattini is at left.

Photos by Chris Desmond/Special to The Commercial Appeal

The focaccia at Cafe Toscana is wrapped in a white cloth and delivered to the table in a wicker basket. It's baked in the restaurant's convection oven every morning, and it's simple and delicious. When we got ours, it was probably an hour old. Two people can easily forget how much good bread they're eating while they're dipping it in nutty-tasting olive oil flavored by a couple of roasted garlic cloves.

When we had gone through three-quarters of the loaf, I got anxious. Being a greedy American diner -- the kind who thinks you can't get too much of a good thing -- I asked our server if we could have more. "When you finish that," he said cheerfully, glancing at our basket. Then he hustled away. (He was taking care of five tables with admirable speed and grace.)

Remember the Soup Nazi on "Seinfeld"? Maybe there's an Italian Bread Nazi in the kitchen at Toscana, who requires that you deserve the bread he makes. I went straight to the task of finishing what we had so we could earn more.

When Fredric Koeppel reviewed Cafe Toscana for The Commercial Appeal three years ago, he described the dinner fare as "simple yet expertly prepared Italian cuisine." That description also perfectly applies to the lunch service the bistro began offering in October in its upstairs

dining room, which is painted a buttery yellow, and on the outdoor balcony that looks over the parking lot toward Wild Oats and the Paradiso theater.

To start one day, we ordered the "carpaccio" appetizer, a dish featuring bresaola -- thin slices of dried, spicy, wine-colored beef loin -- along with flaky Parmesan shavings, marinated artichokes and a tart mustard sauce. Perfect with the focaccia.

I had malanzane parmigianate -- plump slices of eggplant that were breaded and pan-fried, then topped with an impressive marinara sauce.

My friend had the panini -- that bread again, with a hearty serving of grilled chicken, and an inspired balance of asiago cheese and roasted tomatoes. (At home I would have removed the skins from the tomatoes, but the kitchen left them on, and since the dishes here seem well thought-out, I assume they have their reasons.) That plate included an excellent side of sweet potato fries; they're cooked in canola oil, so light that they must float.

Another day, I had the lunch-size version of a Toscana dish I've always thought was just right -- the polpette, generous meatballs of beef and pork. These are densely packed and pleasingly dry inside, seemingly unsullied by fat.

The lunch menu offers an $8 pasta dish. You choose one of eight pasta styles -- fettuccini, linguine, penne, etc. -- and one of nine sauces, such as Gorgonzola cream, Bolognese and marinara. We ordered tortellini with the very rich Parmesan cream sauce, which had a hint of nutmeg. It was a little like having dessert for lunch.

The one dish I ordered here that was merely common was the Caesar salad -- it was a shade on the limp and over-dressed side. Maybe my mistake was failing to be adventurous, because the chef -- Giacomo Ciabattini, a Florentine native -- is very proud of his fresh salad dressings, including a new Champagne vinaigrette and a Gorgonzola with buttermilk, sour cream and bacon on a lettuce wedge. (Neither was on the menus I got, so ask your server about them.)

Our meal was bookended by treats: focaccia at one end, a semifreddo at the other. These small servings of a mousse made from whipped cream and mascarpone cheese chilled in shot glasses are -- and this is not a word I even use -- heavenly. Mine was flavored by limoncello, my friend's was a vanilla that tasted like cake batter and icing, and there are other choices such as chocolate, cherry and amaretto (they vary). An otherworldly experience that only costs $2.50.